Although the present disclosure can be applied to any fiber composite materials and any components, the present disclosure and the problem addressed thereby will be described in greater detail with reference to carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics materials (CFRP) and large components, for example fuselage parts of an aircraft or spacecraft.
Sometimes, large CFRP components are mostly produced using what is known as automated fiber placement (AFP) technology. For this purpose, system technology having very large dimensions is required. The technology is mostly a laying robot which runs in a suspended manner on a gantry, what is known as a fiber-placement head or tape-laying head, which lays fibers on a shaping tool, for example the negative form of a fuselage portion of an aircraft or spacecraft.
One approach to a fiber-laying apparatus which differs from such installations is described in DE 20 2011 110 519 U1. In this case, a rail system is provided, comprising a plurality of rails and a plurality of laying robots which can be moved along the rails on the rail system. The laying robots and the rail system are controlled by a central master computer.